Joseph Girard III answered a pair of quiet performances with two loud ones for unbeaten Clemson.
Girard and the Tigers will look to continue to make noise on Friday night when they host Alcorn State.
Girard totaled just nine points on 2-of-9 shooting from the floor in Clemson’s first two games before finding his stroke.
The Syracuse transfer drained five 3-pointers during his 17-point performance in the Tigers’ 68-65 win over Davidson on Nov. 12. He then scored 17 of his 23 points in the second half of an 85-68 victory over Boise State on Sunday.
“He plays with his head up; he plays with poise,” Clemson coach Brad Brownell said of Girard. “He’s played a lot of basketball and seen a lot of different things, so we have a lot of confidence in him. I think he’s getting more and more comfortable with how we play.”
PJ Hall has been comfortable with the Tigers (4-0) for quite some time. He had 14 points against Boise State to mark his 15th straight double-digit scoring performance dating back to last season.
Brownell praised his team’s effort in the second half vs. the Broncos, during which it outscored its foe by a 44-30 margin.
“In the second half, I thought we just played outstanding basketball on both ends,” Brownell said. “I thought it was one of the better 20 minutes we’ve played.”
While Clemson is ascending, struggling Alcorn State (1-6) fell for the fifth straight time with an 82-69 setback to UT Arlington on Wednesday.
Byron Joshua followed up his 20-point performance in a 93-74 loss to TCU on Tuesday with 21 points against the Mavericks.
Jeremiah Gambrell sank a trio of 3-pointers to highlight his 13-point performance vs. UT Arlington. He is 9-for-19 from beyond the arc over the past three games.
Braves coach Landon Bussie is hoping that his offense can get off to quicker starts.
“I think we got two stops in a row that you’ve got to convert early on, and you can’t have two big stops like that early on and not convert,” Bussie said following Alcorn State’s 81-49 loss to Michigan State on Sunday.
